Trump Returns a Call, Reporter Faints

Michael Mayo writes with admiration about Jimmy Breslin, in the Sun Sentinel.

He gave us all a good tongue-lashing Saturday, and a lot of people nodded their heads in agreement.

He ripped newspapers for losing “their backbone and their nerve,” ripped writers for their timidity and boringness, ripped George W. Bush for Iraq and Jeb Bush for Terri Schiavo.

He ripped a culture that has gone mad with celebrity worship and ripped Big Corporate Media for being complicit in it while ignoring real issues, a real war and real people.

He brought up the name Donald Trump, and his raspy voice pierced like a scalpel: “In the old days, he’d have to pay a big pile to get in the papers as much as he does. Guys would say, `Where’s mine?’ Now, he returns a call and the reporter faints. … If he calls, hang up on him. That’s if you’re dumb enough to have a phone on your desk.”

Breslin is infuriated with the way the ongoing war in Iraq is being covered, or not covered. “Does it even get mentioned?” he asked. “Our performance on the war is horrendous. This will be looked at for a long time as a journalistic failure.”

He talked about a woman Army reservist in the Bronx with four children sent to Iraq. “Even in the worst of World War II, we had a 3A [draft] classification. You couldn’t send a father with four kids to the war. Now it’s all right. They said, `She only delivers mail, she just has to drive on the highways.’ I said you must not read the papers. That’s a fine place to be killed.”